Friday, 29 August 2014

Germany: Bundeswehr Military History Museum

Yesterday arrived the five cards I sent to myself from my trip to Dresden.

One of the cards shows the Bundeswehr Military History Museum. The Bundeswehr Military History Museum shows over 10000 exhibits from the history of wars and is thus one of the three main history museums of Germany. In 2011 the renovation was finished and now the old building has a deconstructivist wedge designed by Daniel Libeskind. The card shows a model of the Gorch Fock and the exhibition "Animals and the Military".

Stamp:
Centenary of World War I (issued 07-08-2014)

I also got an ad-card about the current temporary exhibition "14-Menschen-Krieg". The exhibition illustrates different fates of people "joining" the war in different ways (soldiers and persons like mothers staying at home). For the exhibition they even built an old German trench from Alsace to understand the feelings of the soldiers during the trench warfare. The card shows gas protection clothes for people and horses. Although the Hague Conventions of 1907 prohibited the use of toxic gas the German Empire used it for the first time in 1915. Because of the naval blockade of the Triple Entente the German Empire used the Haber process to produce ammonia. During the war the Triple Entente and the Central Powers used more and more powerful toxic weapons.

In the museum shop I also bought some others World War I related cards.
One of them shows Emperor Wilhelm II with his family. Wilhelm II dismissed Otto von Bismarck in 1890 and leaded the German Empire in the isolation. During the World War I his generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff dictated the policy as he was an ineffective war leader. After the lost war and his abdication he went to exile in the Netherlands where he died in 1941.

Two other cards show German and British air planes used during the World War I. The first city attacked from the air was Liege attacked by an airship. At the beginning of the war air planes were used for air recce but later they were also used for air attacks and dropping of propaganda material.

Another card shows the British propaganda poster "The kitchen is the key to Victory-eat less bread" by an unknown artist. The poster was used to call on the housewives to rationalise bread because of the bad supply situation. This way the housewife at the home front can help the soldiers.

The last card shows the propaganda poster "Join the Air Service and serve in France-Do it now" by J. Paul Verrees. The poster is with the romantic depiction of the air traffic one of the most beautiful American posters of World War I and mobilised a great mass of volunteers.